Rebirth of Darkness
by D3green
Summary: The great one comes to my home town. Now what do I do about it?


Rebirth of darkness

Hi my name is Keith and I live in a town called calm only a couple miles away from Midgar, birthplace of the great one.  At least I want to live there.  That world doesn't even exist.  However if the great one did exist I would follow him to the end of the world.  Plus he's dead now in the fantasy world that spawned him.  Well me and my Family are on our way to church for a youth group activity.  My friends Tristan and Alan are going to be there.  Oh yeah a girl named Kim will be there to and I can sort of stand her.  A lot of other people were there too but I'm not going to go into whom they are.  When you go to one of these events you never know what to expect.  I've already been devoured on one trip and attacked by ketchup on another, but those are different stories for another time.

We were all playing sardines and I was running through the sanctuary with Tristan.  I looked at the glass doors and stood still.  Propped up against the wall next my reflection was a man.  He was a tall man wearing all black and ad short white hair.  When I turned around to see who it was I had seen in the door and there was no one there.  When I looked back at the door his reflection was gone as well.

By this time Tristan had realized I was zoning out. "Come on Keith their going to find us.  What are you looking at?" He said wondering what it was like to live a life in constant confusion.

"Oh no one.  I mean nothing.  I'm coming." I replied unsurely.  See what I mean about the constant confusion.

We made our way through the center isle of the sanctuary and I tripped on something.  I didn't know what happened so I looked around.  I found a pyramid shaped crystal looking thingy lying in the center of the alter.  When I picked it up I realized it was pure black but somehow see through.  It appeared to have a liquid flowing around the inside.  "Cool." Was the only comment I could muster.

"Hey what did you find?" Tristan asked.

"I don't know but I'm going to go ask Mr. Wing if he knows."  I replied.

"Hey come on.  Don't go back we're supposed to be hiding.  Oh he's not paying attention."  He sighed and ran after me trying to stop me by pounding my head into the floor.

5/1/03

"Mr. Wing look at what I found.  Do you know what this is?" I begged of him slowly coming back to reality.

"First of all you are supposed to be hiding.  Here let me see it now that your turn is over."

"Did I already say oops?"

Mr. Wing, who I will now call chuckles, (his name is chuck.) examined the crystal but couldn't figure out if it had any importance.  It wasn't something used for worship and didn't appear to have any value.  So I decided I would keep it after all everything else I have has basically no value either.  Everyone else said it was stupid.

We played a couple more rounds of sardines.  Then we went to practice for tomorrows Easter service.  That was really the whole purpose of the sleep over.  We were running the service.  Just when we thought everything was ok everyone running and screaming.  Alan, Tristan, and I had taken our time getting there and so hadn't even made it half way yet.

"What's wrong?" asked chuckles.

All at once everyone started talking at once and it became impossible to understand.

"Alright stop and be quiet.  Now one of you, explain it." Ordered Elaine chuckles wife.  She is also the pastor.

"Well I was the first one there." Started Jimmy.  "I was about to walk through the wooden door when I heard someone chanting.  I slowly opened the door and looked in.  All the darkness in the room gathered on top of the cross.  A bright light appeared and when it was gone a man was standing on the tip of the cross.  He was really scary.  He was wearing all black close a sword attached to his belt."

I recognized the description and couldn't stop from putting my two cents in.  "Oh I saw him in the win… I mean in the sanctuary."

Suddenly I felt someone calling to me. RETURN WHAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. I suddenly blurted out uncontrollably "Yes master."

Alan replied "What?" and shook me.

"I don't know.  Did I say something?" I answered.

"Let's go check out this man you saw." Chuckles said.

So we all walked back to the sanctuary.  I entered first.

5/2/03

There I saw him before my very eyes.  I would not have known who it is because he looked so different but I knew it was him when he spoke.  He turned around to greet me and jumped off of the cross into the isle.  Every step he took seemed odd in some way and it was so quiet in there that they could be heard all through the church.  However that wasn't the weird part.  I just couldn't put my finger on it.  Literally with this man I couldn't even get close.  His sword was a dead giveaway.  He was the great one, Sephiroth, the all-powerful lord of darkness.  Wielding the Masamune, the sword that only he could master.  Making him humanly impossible to even summon up the courage to fight.  Godly impossible to kill.  For he is the one winged angel.  But he was dead, so how?

He spoke with a light voice yet it boomed and shattered all wit. "Welcome to the end.  I know that one of you has what I'm looking for.  Hand over the Black Materia to me now if you value the lives in this town."

"Oh my god." I managed to force out. "The crystal I found.  I should have recognized it as the Black Materia."

At this point the only the four of us remained.  It was the four of us against the great one but it would take every person on the planet to even scratch him.

"I've got what you want, come and get it if you can find me."  I said with lack of better things to say.

I know what your thinking, stupid right.  It's better than being killed without a fight besides I could see past his lye.  My failure meant that meteor would be used to destroy the world.  I'm not stupid, well even if I'm a little stupid I had to do whatever I could to stop him.

I jumped under the pews and began to move forward frequently until I realized he was blowing he pews off of the floor with his sword.  I jumped through the smoke and under the pews on the other side of the room.  While I was distracting him Tristan, Alan, and Kim had run to the narthex.  It was then that I realized that there were no pews left.  That strategy wouldn't help me anymore.  I had too think fast.  It actually worked and it didn't hurt.  "Ok you got me.  I just want to tell you that even though you're just a fictional character I've always worshiped you.  So just tell me one thing.  How is it that your alive and in our world?"

"Very interesting question.  Well I suppose I could tell you before you die, sort of a last request.  You seem to know a lot about me so I'm sure you know of my demise."  He explained.

"In the center of the planet, at the hand of Cloud Strife."

5/5/03

"That is correct.  Well I had found a loophole.  You see when the life stream was saving the planet from Meteor it was distracted from its duties and I could not return to the planet.  However I had been split into separate atoms.  I gathered my body here in my room.  There was a problem, you see I am limited to this un-dead body.  I am limited in this one room.  The Black Materia can break that seal."

Well then I guess I can let the cat out of the bag.  I don't have the Black Materia.  I threw it to the others and they left already.  So see you later I don't feel like dieing today."

"What I'll get you.  What makes you think you can get away?"

I ran and climbed over a pile of debris and landed behind the alter.  I hope he didn't do his homework about this place.  I ran through the back way.  Up through the choir room and then down through the nursery when I realized I had been running the whole way.  Man was that stupid.  I had known for years that when you run down here it can be heard everywhere.  Why wasn't I thinking clearly?

Darkness had begun to gather at the end of the hallway.  Graviga.  Something was odd however the whole hallway was affected but only one section at a time.  One, two, three cast.  One, two, three cast.  That was it the restrictions.  His body was restricted so he had to time everything.  I timed the blasts and dodged the last one.

This time I was quiet and slowly crawling along.  His eight-foot sword could easily go through the isle and split my head open.  Once I reached the end I ran up the stares and right outside just before he had the chance to close the distance between us.

I walked around and they let me back in at the narthex doors.  Very relieved to see I was alive after those explosions that shook the church.  I told them everything that there was to know, everything that I knew anyway.  At this time the pastor and his family had joined us trying to figure out what was going on.

"If what you say is correct then we must deal with it tonight before the service tomorrow."  Said pastor Imhof.

"Why's that?" Tristan inquired.

"Think about it this way.  What would happen if we let the whole congregation, the choir, the visitors, and the people who are coming to see you with a mad man built on visions of the apocalypse."

No one answered but the silence said all.  Something must be done.  Alan broke the silence, "We can't use the Black Materia against him can we?  It's pure evil isn't it?  It's all yang and no yin."

"You are a genius."  I yelled out uncontrollably.  "You're absolutely right.  The theory of Yin and Yang is that if one exists so must the other to have balance.  Sephiroth was right but the Black Materia wasn't the only thing that followed him.  The White Materia also could have followed him through death.  At least I think it did.  If so that will be our advantage."

"So where do we start looking?"  Kim asked.

5/6/03

"That's a very good question."  Chuckles replied.  "The greatest question is how are you going to answer that question."

"Were not.  Someone I know once said a question well stated is a question half answered.  So what so what is our question?  Where is the White Materia or does it exist?"  I put in.

"Do you think Sephiroth knows?  I mean he didn't know you didn't have the Black Materia.  So would he have found its white counter part?"  Tristan added in.

"We still need more information before we can jump to any conclusions."  Alan said.

So the work began.  We all split up into groups of three.  No one dared look in the sanctuary.  That is except Alan, Tristan, and I.  We went outside and entered by lowering ourselves through a grating and entering a door that led below the sanctuary.  We warned each other not to run or talk because of the danger above.

Once inside the only thought on our mind was were to search first.  We tried the nursery and even the youth room.  We quietly tore the room apart.  Found nothing.  I course I didn't tell them what it looked like because it was pretty obvious.  It looked exactly the same as the Black Materia except white.  Wait a minute, or would it be pale green.  The Black Materia wasn't a pyramid like it had been before maybe the White Materia was different too?  I didn't want to worry about it.  Somehow I managed to.

We decided the day couldn't get any worse.  So we searched the choir room.  It was a very risky job due to the fact that it was an adjoined room the sanctuary.  The only thing separating us from him was a single door.  Why would that stop him?  That's when I noticed it.  A white glimmer could be seen leaking out of the baptizing bowl.  I motioned to Tristan and Alan who soon picked up on it.

"That son of a…"  Tristan began.

Mid sentence we cupped our hands around his mouth in an attempt to shut him up.  We went outside to ponder our newest problem.  Upon deciding we needed more brainpower we returned to the others.  Immediately I took up my habit of checking the clock.  It was only one in the morning.  The whole knight had seemed like an eternity yet only three hours had passed since it all began.

"You three look like you had another run in with the great one."  Chuckles said with a little bit of sarcasm.  Just to heighten the moral.

"Even worse.  We found the White Materia but it's behind enemy lines."  Alan replied.

"It's in the baptism bowl which means we need to go through Sephiroth in the very near future."  I announced.

"I bet you don't even know how you're going to do that.  Especially without pews to hide under."  Kim joked.

"Well there's a saying we have in this family.  Can anyone guess?"  Chuckles wondered.  The silence told him that we were as scared as we looked and that we were clueless.  At any other time we would have been joking.  "Wing it."  He finished.

"Ha, ha very funny, but it works.  That gives me an idea."

So after a very long pep speech my plan was put into action.  Mrs. Wing and a couple kids went to get coffee, the highest caffeine level you can find.  Meanwhile I changed close.  I was now wearing no shoes or sox, shorts, and had tucked my shirt in my shorts.  I put my belt as tight as it would go and my shirt had no sleeves.  While waiting for the coffee Tristan and Alan improved my dodging skills and adjusted me to Sephiroth's timing.  When the coffee arrived I drank all twelve cups of it and I was ready to go.  The whole plan was devised so that I was as aerodynamic as possible and could move as fast as possible for as long as possible.  The coffee was for energy.  As for the "wing it" part I'm getting to that.  However I had realized that Sephiroth had thrown aside all his armor and cut his hair to improve his restricted reaction time.

5/7/03

By the time we got to him the great one had already drawn his sword.  We had made no effort to keep ourselves hidden.

"Well have you decided to hand me the Black Materia."  Sephiroth asked with the utmost confidence.

"We've come up with a better plan."  I replied strongly.

"We?  I only see one.  The others were to scared to assist you?  Now come and be judged for your right to the Promised Land."

"As you wish."  I whispered softly.

Immediately the Masamune flew past my shoulder.  I timed the strikes right and dodged every one.  The plan was working, so far.  I grabbed two throwing knifes that the others had thrown to me.  I timed my attack and planted them in his chest.  I could seethe anger in his eyes.  I was besting him, so far.  No one had ever bested him so easily, if you could call this easy.  I started to make my way over to the baptism bowl.  I was getting pretty tired but I was so close.

When I reached the alter I took the door to the right.  The door that led around the flower room and back up onto the alter.  I thought I was safe in the hallway but I could here his footsteps as he ran after me blowing the door down with one swift move.  He hit me with the hilt of the Masamune and knocked me through the wall.  I fell on the stares of the Alter and could hardly move.  If you could imagine being hit by someone with god like strength, it really hurts no matter how strong you are.

"That room is still part of the sanctuary.  As for my restrictions, changing my timing so I can run faster.  It can be done but it takes up to much energy.  However I am so close to my goal the loss would be worth it.  You see my plan was devised to put you in a false sense of security.  Look at it this way, if all else fails you can always keep dodging my attacks until there's no room left.  Oh but you wouldn't last that long."  Sephiroth explained grimly.

"I'm not done fighting yet.  I won't prove you to be superior."  I struggled to get the words out.

With that moment I kicked the baptism bowl over.  Automatically I threw the Black Materia out a window so it landed just out of reach.  I grabbed the White Materia squeezed it and held it high over my head.

Nothing happened.  I was soon reminded that I had a bad habit of forgetting things, important things.  I thought hard and the vision of Aries popped into my head.  She died while trying to use the White Materia.  Before sacrificing herself for the cause she had prayed to the Cetra.  That's it, the Cetra.  You had to be of Cetra decent to use Holy, the magic that the White Materia held.  Obviously you could see the stress of the defeat stamped all over my face.

"I was not worried.  The Cetra made that Materia foolproof.  With the Black Materia back in my possession and no one to stop me, I've won."  Sephiroth said.  Definitely happy knowing he had the advantage yet again.

Sephiroth let out a malevolent laugh that seemed to the gather the darkness to him.  The Black Materia began to burn.  His hand opened up and the Black Materia rose above his hand.  It began to pull all the darkness to it.  So much was gathering that you couldn't even see it anymore.  He was summoning Meteor.  Now was the time to act.  I chucked the White Materia strait at it and yelled my counter line.  "Unfortunately for you the Cetra didn't make you foolproof."

My plan had worked.  I decided to wing it at the end.  Take things slowly but surely.  You needed to be Cetra to use the Black Materia as well.  When the White Materia replaced the Black in his hand and he realized he was now trying to cast Holy, he was shocked.  At this point it was already to late.

A blinding light lifted him into the air and begun to tear his body apart.  He fell and tabbed the Masamune into the ground.  Blood everywhere.  He struggled as hard as he could and swatted at the light as it began to burn through his flesh.

"How could you have?  It's impossible."  He begged angrily.

I walked over to him and whispered "I winged it."  Mid sentence plucking his one wing off.  He broke down into dusk and blew off in the air.  The swirling winds slowly began to settle.  It felt like an eternity but I didn't even have the strength to move.

When all was calm I looked around.  "Oh man," I thought, "What am I going to do about all this destruction and blood.  Not to mention I'm not going to last much longer like this."

As if in response the light that was Holy lifted in front of my face.  The light expanded and covered the whole room.  Once it had disappeared the room was back in order and I was healed back to normal.  Maybe I was even better than normal.  Like my body was completely removed of physical flaws.

There was only one thing remaining.  I slowly walked up to the Alter and removed my hands from my pockets.  I picked up the Black Materia threw it up into the air and caught it on the way down.  Then I slipped it into my pocket and walked slowly to the Narthex.

The look on the others faces was expected.  I had gone into battle and come out unscratched.

"So how did it go?"  Asked pastor Imhof.

With my last bit of energy I said, "Perfectly.  He's dead and well you can look at the sanctuary yourselves."

Before anyone could reply I moved toward my sleeping bag and dragged my feet the whole way.  I went to sleep and fell like a rock onto my sleeping bag.  I was sleeping so heavily I started to snore which I never do.  Nothing could wake me up until morning.  Nothing.

With the church safe and the Black Materia in good hands I was happy.  Chuckles was going to wake me but Pastor Imhof said, "No.  Let him rest.  He's going to need it for tomorrow."

**Epilogue**

The Monday after I was at school and met up with my friends Nik and Myia.  Just remember that I have a hole in my shirt from the fight.  We were outside and it was very foggy.  I was telling them both about my victory over Sephiroth and an inhuman victory.

"Wow that's an awesome story.  Are you sure you didn't hit my head?" Myia blurted out the second I finished.  But before I could finish Nik said, "Well if you killed Sephiroth than who's that?  He's been asking me about you all morning."  As he finished he pointed to a crow about four feet away.

We all stared first at Nik for saying something even crazier my story and then to the bird.  The bird had begun to glow and suddenly blue flames grew around it.  Cold flames.  Flames that burned away his flesh and built his body a new in the shape of a human.  This one however I knew immediately and so did Myia.  Gerald Tarrent, the hunter.  We all just stared.

"So you were the one who killed my partner."  He said in a low dark voice.

No one spoke.  Well almost no one.  Myia remembered the hole in my shirt.  "Poke."

**The end**

**The next story to come…**

**I'm being hunted**


End file.
